


Hearing Voices

by Twice_before_Friday



Category: Prodigal Son (TV 2019)
Genre: Car Accidents, Concussions, Major Character Injury
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-08
Updated: 2019-12-08
Packaged: 2021-03-07 09:20:31
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,399
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21718672
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Twice_before_Friday/pseuds/Twice_before_Friday
Summary: Concussions make the world so much more confusing.
Comments: 38
Kudos: 236





	Hearing Voices

**Author's Note:**

> I've never really written anything like this, so I hope everything is still clear.
> 
> Constructive feedback is very welcome!

Malcolm watched as the glow of the headlights refracted off the fissures in the glass, the twinkling lights dancing like dust motes in a column of sunshine. It was mesmerizing. The way the light seemed to bend and jump from crack to crevice, illuminating each tiny, shattered fragment for only a fraction of a second before moving on to the next. 

His eyes tried to follow the glittering passage, but he kept losing track, his vision flickering and blurring, eyelids feeling unusually heavy. For once, his body seemed ready to sleep, but there was a little voice in the back of his mind that was whispering _stay awake_. It was different from the other voices that usually kept him up at night; those voices would always scream and scrape through his mind, a sort of combat, careless of damage they caused.

So Malcolm was fascinated by the new, soft voice, and poked around in his head trying to figure out where it was coming from. But as he was prodding at his mind, trying to assuage his curiosity, his body was slowly filtering back into existence. And it hurt. A lot. 

He let out a low moan as the pain bled through the haze of confusion, taking center stage, drowning out the comforting voice in his head. Which was fine, really, because he certainly didn’t feel ready to sleep anymore, anyways. 

His chest and abdomen were aching, and he suddenly realized that it was impossible to take a full breath. His head jerked up as he started to panic, but the abrupt movement was agonizing, pulsing through his brain and leaving him dizzy and nauseous. He squeezed his eyes shut tight in an attempt to stop the world from spinning, breath coming out in short, panting huffs, whimpering with every pulse through his head as he tried to ride out the pain. 

Eventually the jackhammering in his head receded into a dull throbbing and he carefully cracked open an eye, checking to see if the world had righted itself. The adrenaline that flooded his system - during his moment of panic and the explosive burst of pain - was working to clear a little of the fog that had been clouding his mind, and he finally noticed his surroundings.

He was in the passenger seat of a car. The windshield was shattered but miraculously still in place, spider-web cracks blanketing the glass. The front end of the car was underwater, headlights casting an eerie glow beneath the flowing stream, which was rippling and reflecting on the windshield and causing the dancing lights that had so intrigued him moments earlier.

The car was angled steeply enough that Malcolm was pitched forward in his seat, only held in place by the seatbelt that seemed to be crushing his chest and stomach. All at once it made sense why he was having trouble managing getting a lungful of air, but his head was still stuffed full of cotton and he wasn’t cognizant enough to figure out how to remedy the situation. He brought his hands to the straps holding him in place and started tugging, only to stop as bolt of pain shot through his wrist and up his arm.

He cried out and pulled his arm in towards himself, once again squeezing his eyes shut as the pain rolled through him. He was taking short, shallow breaths again, and along with with the constriction of his chest by the seatbelt, he found himself lightheaded, black dots starting to cloud his vision. As the pain in his arm diminished, the quiet voice in the back of his mind seemed to find it’s footing once again, telling him to _take deep breaths_. He gritted his teeth and did as he was told, making a conscious effort to slow and deepen his respiration, attempting to practice the 4-7-8 breathing technique his therapists had drilled into him for when he was in the grips of an anxiety attack. Unfortunately, the diminished lung capacity caused by the seatbelt made inhaling for 4 seconds difficult, holding for 7 impossible, and exhaling for 8 entirely out of the question. He managed well enough to keep from passing out, though, and the voice in his head said _good work, kid_.

With that praise in mind, he decided that he deserved to take a few minutes to admire the pretty lights once again, now that breathing was less of an immediate concern. He couldn’t seem to remember why exactly he was concerned in the first place, anyways. His thoughts seemed to be slipping around in his head, sliding just out of reach any time he tried to grab on to one. 

Eventually, the low voice in his mind reminded him that he was supposed to _assess for injuries_. He didn’t really have the energy to be moving around, though, and decided he would rather close his eyes, just for a little while.

_Eyes open, Bright_. While the voice had begun pleasantly enough, it was starting to grate on his nerves. _Assess for injuries_. 

Malcolm huffed out a breath but did as he was told. He slowly started flexing and moving his body, starting with his feet and moving upwards. He was sore pretty much everywhere, but didn’t seem to encounter any major issues until he reached where the seatbelt was wrapped around him. He decided to deal with that later, since there was no way of knowing if there were any internal injuries. With a bit of urging from the voice, he continued on. His right wrist seemed to be sprained, maybe broken. That was unfortunate. It would really put a hitch in his morning yoga routine.

_Keep going, Bright_. He sighed, but brought his left hand up to feel his face and head. The right side of his face was tender but seemed alright on the whole, but he hissed as his fingers met his right temple. He pulled his hand away and found it sticky with blood. Malcolm blinked at his hand, not really understanding what was happening. He was bleeding? What happened?

He turned his head slightly, carefully, looking towards the passenger window. There was blood on the window too. Seemed like one heck of a coincidence. 

_Other way, kid_. He didn’t understand why his head was talking to him. But it seemed prudent to listen, so he very slowly turned his head to the left. JT seemed to be asleep on the steering wheel. Malcolm noticed that his pillow seemed to have deflated and thought that he must be uncomfortable. 

_Check for a pulse_. Malcolm’s eyebrows drew together. That seemed serious. Did something happen?_ Now, Bright_. He reached his left hand forward and rested his fingers on JT's neck. There was a faint but steady beat, and Malcolm spared a moment to appreciate how the beat played along with the dancing lights, waltzing together.

“JT,” Malcolm whispered. “Wake up, JT.” He nudged his shoulder and his hand came back coated in even more blood. It seemed that it was becoming a regular occurrence. Malcolm didn’t like it much.

_Call for help_. Malcolm’s head was pounding. He didn’t want to start shouting. He knew it would just make it worse. _Use your phone, kid_. 

“Oh.”

Malcolm fumbled through his pockets with his left hand, feeling for his phone. He found it eventually and held it in front of his face, screen off, blinking uncomprehendingly at the device. _Call for help_.

Right. It took a few tries to thumb in his password; the numbers were blurry and he wasn’t used to using his left hand. But eventually he pulled up Gil’s number and hit the call button. He looked over at JT while he was waiting for the call to connect. JT wasn’t really looking very well. Malcolm was in the middle of wondering if he was maybe sick, when the line connected and the phone started to ring. It startled Malcolm, who had forgotten he was holding the phone, and he dropped it into the footwell. 

“Oops,” Malcolm blinked down at the glow in the footwell. He tried to reach for the phone but couldn’t seem to get any closer. There was something holding him back but he couldn’t understand what it was. He reached for the restraints that he could feel across his chest and abdomen, but stopped with a yelp as he jostled his wrist. 

_Help JT_. Malcolm was getting confused. The voice in his head sounded an awful lot like the voice coming from beside his feet. And why were his feet even talking? _Stop the_ _bleeding_. 

Things were becoming very complicated and Malcolm was not enjoying it at all. He just wanted to watch the dancing lights, but everyone seemed to be talking to him. Except JT. JT was quiet. Too quiet. JT was never this quiet. JT was always making wisecracks and pretending to be too cool to care, when it was so easy to tell that he had a huge heart and just wanted everyone to be okay.

_Help JT_. Okay. JT needed help. Malcolm would help him. But how?

_Undo your seatbelt_. His eyebrows crinkled again. Although that sort of made sense of the tightness he was feeling across his chest and abdomen. He reached down and pressed the release button on the seatbelt and immediately fell forward into the dashboard, chest colliding painfully with the hard PVC surface, and right hand tangling in the seatbelt as it retracted. He let out one pained scream before his world went black.

When he came to, he was half slumped in the footwell and half resting on the dashboard. It was unbelievably uncomfortable, but his head felt slightly less fuzzy. It took several minutes for him to figure out why he was on the floor of the car, but soon the memories started floating back.

The team was on the trail of a serial rapist/killer. They had been working the case for a few days when they got the break they were looking for. They were able to ID the killer and traced his killing grounds up near Bear Mountain State Park. JT and Malcolm headed up, meeting with a squad of local police to canvas the area where they thought the killer was taking his victims, while Dani and Gil remained at the precinct to coordinate and continue running leads. The killer turned out to be up at the park with a new victim, and JT and Malcolm ended up in pursuit as he tried to make a break for it, zigzagging through byways and access roads and getting deeper and deeper into the mountains.

They had been gaining ground when the killer suddenly started shooting, blowing out his own back window and sending bullets spraying toward JTs car. JT slammed on the breaks, but not before one of the bullets ripped through their windshield and JT’s shoulder. JT lost control of the car and they careened off the side of the road, rolling down the embankment, flipping end over end several times before coming to a halt with the front end submerged in the stream below, the back end lifted high on the rocky ledge.

Oh God. JT. Malcolm realized what he had forgotten and angled his body towards the driver’s seat. 

“Shit,” he whispered as he slowly maneuver himself over to JT. He had to stop at one point and close his eyes, the car swaying around him and flickering in and out of focus, and he had barely enough time to turn his head before he vomited. He was just lucid enough to recognize the signs of a concussion, and decided he needed to help JT quickly, before he was no longer able to.

He felt for a pulse and breathed a sigh of absolute relief when he found one. He used his uninjured hand to feel over as much of JT's body as he could, checking for any substantial injuries. He had multiple abrasions from the airbag, but as far as he could tell, the only serious injury was bullet wound. Malcolm shrugged off his jacket – with a few pained cries as he slipped the sleeve over his injured hand – and balled it up underneath JT's slumped form, slowing the bleeding as JT's own body weight against the steering wheel provided pressure to the wound.

“JT,” Malcolm called out. “JT, wake up.” He tapped his face lightly, but received no response. “JT, c'you hear me?”

Malcolm frowned at the slight slur in his words. Definitely not a good thing. They needed help. Now.

Malcolm patted down his pockets, but there was no sign of his phone. He found JT's cell phone on the dashboard up against the window, but it was cracked and broken and utterly useless. He tossed it back on the dash and dropped his head into his hand. His vision was starting to swim disconcertingly and the pounding in his head was getting steadily worse. He leaned his elbows against the dashboard and tried to keep his breathing even as saliva flooded his mouth and the nausea washed over him once again. He turned his head to throw up once more, but the movement was too much and he lost consciousness before his stomach had a chance to rebel. He didn’t even feel it as his body crumpled to the floor.

_Come on, Bright, wake up_. Malcolm didn’t know how long he'd been out that time, but he was rather pleased to be waking to that calm voice once again. He slowly blinked his eyes open and found Gil hovering over him. 

“There you are, City Boy. You had me worried for a minute.” Gil was looking down at him, concern evident in his warm eyes. He could hear Dani and JT having a stilted conversation on the other side of the car, JT's answers weak and punctuated by groans. Gil was still looking down at Malcolm, presumably waiting for an answer to a question Malcolm had missed.

Malcolm smiled dopily at him, “Is you,” he said. Gil gave him a confused look, his worry amplifying at the slur to Bright's words. “yu're the voice. In m'head. And at m'feet.”

“Just hang in there kid, help is coming.”

And when the flashing lights appeared far above them, casting a dappled illumination upon the car wreck below, Malcolm realized that help had been there all along.


End file.
